The Peabody Sisters of Salem

The quintessential biography on these three influential women in American history. Elizabeth was an American educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States, probably her greatest single influence on modern American culture. She was famously a one-woman publishing house, who wrote transcendentalist and abolitionist essays; as well, she served as the translator for the first English version of a Buddhist scripture which was published in 1844. Elizabeth is perhaps most famous for opening a bookstore in her Boston home, that was home to much intellectual conversation among the literary movers and shakers of the time. Mary and Elizabeth competed for the affections of Horace Mann; Mary married the famous American education reformer. Mary was an educator as were her sister Elizabeth and husband, as well as author of children's books. Sophia was the artist of the family, marrying Nathaniel Hawthorne. Sophia painted as well as illustrated her husband's books. Mrs. Tharp's narrative skill, her loving insight into the character of these three women, have combined with careful scholarship to present an immensely readable, fascinating biography, one to be enjoyed by the everyday reader and to be prized by the student of the mid-19th century. This issue concerns merging or splitting products.